


John

by Sherctorrunning23



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Ending, First Kiss, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Pool scene, Realisations of love, The Great Game, fluff (sort of)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-02-10 17:28:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12916746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sherctorrunning23/pseuds/Sherctorrunning23
Summary: They are a supernova, spiralling through the sky, faster than sound and light and time all together. They are a comet, alone together as they sprint through the universe. They are a black hole, collapsing and imploding and destroying but so, so beautiful.





	John

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave comments and kudos :) 
> 
> P.S- wrote this after rewatching the Great Game and felt inspired. The quotes are vaguely along the lines of those in the episode (ish)

It’s been a trying week.

Now, as Sherlock walks into the swimming pool building where Carl Powers breathed his last, he is finally ready to admit it. He’s _exhausted_ with the whole situation: the dying, the riddles, the lack of control. Maybe Mycroft’s right, and he’s been Moriarty’s puppet for months and months, but at least until recently he didn’t _feel_ like a puppet. At least he could pretend without feeling like a fraud.

As he gently removes the stolen memory stick from his pocket, he remembers what John said to him, earlier in the week. _Try to remember that people have died, Sherlock._ It’s been echoing back for days, along with the face that his flatmate/friend/blogger pulled as he said it: a mixture of disappointment and sadness.

God, he _hated_ disappointing John. He wanted to make John pleased, to make John happy, to make John…well. To make John like him, for reasons he couldn’t quite decipher (thirty years without the urge for human friendship, and suddenly he’s overwhelmed with a desire to impress an ex-soldier-cum-doctor) and didn’t have time to decipher. Not now.

The game was on.

He shakes his head, pulls on his façade, and says as confidently as he can to the empty room, ‘Brought you a little getting-to-know-you present. Because that’s what it’s all been for, isn’t it? All your little puzzles- all to distract me from this _.’_ He waves the memory stick, waiting to see him, this man he’s been thinking about, waiting for, and finally found-

‘Evening.’

His heart stops in his chest.

Literally, his heart pauses in his chest. He feels the blood crashing through his veins grind to a horrible halt, the neurons in his brain freeze in their tracks, a brutally cold ice creeping through his muscles and ligaments and bones. Every part of him has stopped, because John Watson is standing in front of him, where Moriarty should be standing.

Time is still, and Sherlock has never felt like he feels in that moment.

It’s the choke-hold of betrayal, the twisted arm of mercilessness, the head-lock of disbelief. He’s being squeezed by something that isn’t really there, squeezed into submission because John is Moriarty, his _friend_ is Moriarty, and Sherlock genuinely cannot believe this has happened, that John, his John, is his arch-enemy, has been playing him for all this time, _Christ, no, please, God-_

‘This is a turn-up, isn’t it Sherlock?’ John, John’s voice, emphasising the _–lock_ syllable of his name as only John seems to do, and Sherlock can remember all the other time he’s heard John say his name: the first day, outside Baker Street, fighting Chinese assassins, watching crap TV, telling him _to try to remember that people have died, Sherlock._

He’s said something, but he doesn’t know what because his senses are blurring together, into truth and lies, right and wrong, friend and foe, Watson and Moriarty.

‘Bet you never saw this coming,’ John says, and Sherlock realises that he is moving, moving towards the man he’d thought was his friend, the man he cared most about in this life or the next, the sharp knife of treachery boring into his heart. He wants to take John and tell him it can’t be right, that he can’t be Moriarty, that he’s John Watson and he is his _friend-_

John opens his jacket, and Sherlock sees wires, and his bewilderment is replaced by adrenalin.

He hadn’t thought he was capable of such emotional gymnastics, but the moment his mind computes that John Watson is in danger the betrayal is forgotten, the sadness is forgotten, the feeling of utter despair is forgotten. All that remains is a single phrase, playing over and over in his head-

_Save John Watson._

He can’t listen to the real Moriarty when he appears. He talks, he flirts, he speaks without speaking, entirely focused on John. All that matters is John, keeping John safe, finding a way to make John safe. His heart leaps back into action when John grabs Moriarty from behind, his brain racing, frantically trying to come up with a way to remove the danger from him: he’s happy when he realises the red sniper lights are tracked on him, but it doesn’t remain that way and his heart stops again when John is back under the steady glow of the lights. It occurs to him that, whilst people joke that it is the doctor who has sworn unswerving loyalty to the detective, it was in fact the other way round: he would do anything, everything, to make sure John is safe.

_He needs John Watson to be safe._

When Moriarty disappears, he’s by John in a heartbeat. The coat is off, Sherlock throws it as far away from them as he can, saying over and over, ‘are you alright, are you alright’ and not hearing a reply, and finally, _finally_ his heart is beating again, and he wants to cry and scream and laugh all at the same time because John is safe, John is here, John is standing in front of him and John _hasn’t_ betrayed him, John hasn’t _left_ him, John is still there, with him-

But now it’s quiet, and they’re standing opposite each other, John sweating and shivering and breathing heavily, Sherlock pale and fraught with the tension that’s been keeping him going. Too quiet, almost, a silence that needs to be interrupted, and Sherlock’s head and heart and body is so crammed with emotion he feels like he’s going to-

‘I’m glad no-one saw that,’ John whispers, and Sherlock shakes his head, desperately trying to understand what’s happening. ‘What- what?’

‘You, ripping my clothes off in a darkened swimming pool.’ John’s taken a step closer, his eyes dark and hooded, and Sherlock feels something flickering in his chest that he hasn’t felt for a very, very, _very_ long time. ‘Oh?’ He says, trying very hard not to start crying. ‘Why?’

‘People might talk.’ They’re so close now that Sherlock can feel John’s breath on his face, can smell the cologne he must have put on to go to Sarah’s (his mind palace absolutely refuses to accept any mention of Sarah, and he promptly forgets her). John is so close that Sherlock can see the golden flecks in his pale blue eyes, and it occurs to him that maybe he shouldn’t be standing this close to John, that maybe he should be taking some sort of time-out in order to make sense of all the emotions he’s feeling for the first time in decades, in his life, and _what the hell would Mycroft say if he could see him now?_

That would be the sensible thing to do, but Sherlock Holmes is anything but sensible.

They’ve been in silence for too long, and Sherlock realises it is his turn to speak. ‘People- people do little else.’

John makes a noise in the back of his throat, and they’ve collided.

They are a supernova, spiralling through the sky, faster than sound and light and time all together. They are a comet, alone together as they sprint through the universe. They are a black hole, collapsing and imploding and destroying but so, so beautiful.

John’s lips on Sherlock’s are everything and nothing, and he can’t believe he never realised that this, _this_ was exactly what he needed, John’s hands locked around his neck, John’s lips on his, John pressed against him until they are one. John hasn’t betrayed him, John is safe, and therefore Sherlock is complete.

He doesn’t notice that John’s pressed him against the wall until his head clashes against a metal pole with a hollow _bang,_ except that’s of no use to him or John at that moment because all he can think about is this brilliantly simple man, and this brilliantly simple man touching and holding and _being with_ him, in every way, all ways, John Watson, Sherlock Holmes-

‘We need to stop,’ John gasps, and Sherlock shakes his head, unable to bear the thought of them being apart, not for as long as they live. ‘John.’

‘Say that again,’ he says, and Sherlock complies, promising himself that no other word will ever leave his lips. ‘John, John, John, John, _John.’_ Over and over, as he commits himself to his flatmate/friend/blogger and _so what_ if he can’t make sense of his thoughts or feelings or wants, _so what_ if this wasn’t something he’d even considered (or at least, thought he’d considered) before twenty-five minutes ago, _so what_ if this would almost certainly be catastrophic because this was it, this was everything for Sherlock Holmes, and he would never want anything else.

John is everything, and as they give themselves to each other in the swimming pool building where Carl Powers breathed his last, Sherlock is absolutely fine with that.


End file.
